Supermarket Swipe

Ok it's cards on the table time. I live in a very nice leafy part of Glasgow approximately 100 yards from the oldest university in the city. I am therefore within walking distance of some of the best bars, restaurants, independant retailers and parks that this city has to offer.

Now for the bad news. It appears that due to the close proximity of the afore mentioned university and the resulting student population my local supermarket could not be less appealing if it tried and I often think that it does.

In fairness it has traded under three different guises in the last couple of years with ownership transferring from Safeway to Morrisons and then onto Somerfield.

Anyway, as I was saying I believe that the local student population are at least partially responsible for the intrinsic difficulties often encountered in this temple of consumerism.

As I had the day off work I thought I would take the opportunity to stock up on some basics as the food situation in the kitchen was becoming critical. I duly wandered down to the not so supermarket and started selecting my goodies.

Everything was going well until I arrived at the checkouts to discover that only two were operational. Oh well there are only three people in this queue, it'll only take a minute or so you muse.

WRONG!,wrong and wrong again. You dumb fuck you didn't look at the three people in front of you did you? If you had you would have spotted that each one was a student. I would like to point out that I have no beef with the student population I simply object to being served after them in any circumstance and I'll explain why.

Each of the three students in the queue before me had, at most, a handful of items which when totaled would come to £5 or less. Still with me? Good. Now this is where my blood pressure started to rise. Each one in succession greeted the cashiers request for payment with a surprised and flustered expression. Yeah like she was going to let you just stroll out of the shop.

Once the cashier had dropped the bombshell that she actually expected them to pay for the goods I was treated to each one in turn fumbling through their jacket pockets and backpack before realising that their switch card was in their trouser pocket all the time. Each one then took an age to remember their PIN number before completing their transaction.

Quick tip kids. If your shopping costs less than £5 use cash, it is quicker and less painful for those around you. They say that the queen doesn't carry cash but I bet she could have scraped together the £1.93 that the smelly bastard in front of me needed for his bottle of super strength cider and jam donut combo.